HOTEL Project Default Occupation

We've always treated hotels as follows:
- FTE = Staff
- Transients = Non-Guests (i..e. visitors to the restaurant, locals coming for banquets/meetings, etc.).
- Residents = Hotel Guests. LEED Interpretation 1698 specifically discusses how to calculate a guest number based on the breakdown of room types in the project.

For the SSc4.2 calculations, we then only look at the staff+transients for bike racks (as there is another LI discussing hotel guests not being applicable). For WEp1 calculations, we include the residents in water usage of water closets, lavatories, and showers, but not for kitchen sinks or urinals (as they don't have those in their rooms). IEQc6.1/6.2 are the most complicated as you have to show controls by occupant # for the FTE but then by # of Rooms for the residents. We usually manage this by uploading two sets of supplemental calculations showing the compliance for each group independently (i.e. one set for FTE and one set for Rooms).

Well you need to include all the occupants of the areas you are certifying. So if the restaurant is within your LEED boundary, they at least need to be included. Breaking out users beyond that somewhat depends. I usually make a detailed/broken out spreadsheet for myself for coming up with my totals. However, I like to then simplify my applications into as few distinct groups as necessary as it improves my quality/consistency of reviews and reduces my own error potential of missing fixtures/not updating consistently.

If all of your flush/flow fixtures will have the same rates (I.e. all public water closets are 1.28 gpf, all public lavatories are metered faucets with 0.5 gpm, etc), then there really isn't any benefit to breaking everyone out separately in your application. Note that as residents need to be put in against residential fixture types, it's really only a question of if all your fixtures available to FTE & Transients are the same and if all your guest room fixtures are the same (in terms of water usage).

I followed up this conversation, but I'm still not completely sure about the issue with FTEs, transients and hotel guests.

I'm working on a C&S hotel project (v2009) and we calculated the FTE Occupants (116 p.) and Transient Occupants (248 p.) according to the C&S APPENDIX 1 - Default Occupancy Counts of the LEED-Guide.

Accordind to the LEED-Interpr. ID#100001771 the determination of hotel guests can be done through the room number and we got 241 guests (267rooms x 1.5 occupants per guest room x 60% average hotel occupancy).

For WEp1, do we now have to base the calculations on:

- the FTE (116 p.) and Transient Occupants (248 p.) determination acc. to CS App. 1 ("Employees (FTE)" and "Transients" in the WEp1 caluclator)?

OR

- the FTE (116 p.) and Transient Occupants (248 p.) determination acc. to CS App. 1 and ADDITIONALLY add the hotel guests (241 p.) as residentials ("Employees (FTE)", "Transients" AND "Residential" in the WEp1 caluclator)?

OR

- the FTE (116 p.) determination acc. to CS App. 1 and INSTEAD of Transient Occupants (248 p.) add the hotel guests (241 p.) as residentials ("Employees (FTE)" AND "Residential" in the WEp1 caluclator)?
(otherwise the total number for employees (FTE), transients AND residentials seems to be very high and maybe not representing real occupancy?!)

I hope you can help me with this issue.

Thanks
Paul

Yeah - CS projects are more complicated for hotels. Thinking back, we've never had a CS hotel project - all of mine have been NC. You really want to put the hotel guests in as residents as you have to include their water usage in your WEp1 calculations as it just is SO much easier when they are that category.

I would probably do a hybrid approach: use that LI for the hotel guests (Residents); use the total GSF to calculate FTE; and maybe just the SF of the amenity/non-room area for Transients? I.e. the restaurant+banquet hall + lobby + etc. That would give you a more realistic picture of the actual occupancy of the project. My guess is that the number would be slightly higher than if you just did the CS defaults (FTE + Transients) but would give you an appropriate FTE+Transients+Residents breakdown that you need for other calculations... As long as you explain your logic/breakdown in a narrative/supplemental calculations in PIf3, you should be fine.